14 CPT: 10TH GENERAL REPORT Mixed gender staffing Equality of access to activities 23. As the CPT stressed in its 9th General Report, mixed gender staffing is an important safeguard against ill-treatment in places of detention. The presence of male and female staff can have a beneficial effect in terms of both the custodial ethos and in fostering a degree of normality in a place of detention. 25. Women deprived of their liberty should enjoy access to meaningful activities (work, training, education, sport etc.) on an equal footing with their male counterparts. As the Committee mentioned in its last General Report, CPT delegations all too often encounter women inmates being offered activities which have been deemed "appropriate" for them (such as sewing or handicrafts), whilst male prisoners are offered training of a far more vocational nature. Mixed gender staffing also allows for appropriate staff deployment when carrying out gender sensitive tasks, such as searches. In this context, the CPT wishes again to emphasise that persons deprived of their liberty should only be searched by staff of the same gender and that any search which requires an inmate to undress should be conducted out of the sight of custodial staff of the opposite gender. Separate accommodation for women deprived of their liberty 24. The duty of care which is owed by a State to persons deprived of their liberty includes the duty to protect them from others who may wish to cause them harm. The CPT has occasionally encountered allegations of woman upon woman abuse. However, allegations of ill-treatment of women in custody by men (and, more particularly, of sexual harassment, including verbal abuse with sexual connotations) arise more frequently, in particular when a State fails to provide separate accommodation for women deprived of their liberty with a preponderance of female staff supervising such accommodation. As a matter of principle, women deprived of their liberty should be held in accommodation which is physically separate from that occupied by any men being held at the same establishment. That said, some States have begun to make arrangements for couples (both of whom are deprived of their liberty) to be accommodated together, and/or for some degree of mixed gender association in prisons. The CPT welcomes such progressive arrangements, provided that the prisoners involved agree to participate, and are carefully selected and adequately supervised. In the view of the CPT, such a discriminatory approach can only serve to reinforce outmoded stereotypes of the social role of women. Moreover, depending upon the circumstances, denying women equal access to regime activities could be qualified as degrading treatment. Ante natal and post natal care 26. Every effort should be made to meet the specific dietary needs of pregnant women prisoners, who should be offered a high protein diet, rich in fresh fruit and vegetables. 27. It is axiomatic that babies should not be born in prison, and the usual practice in Council of Europe member States seems to be, at an appropriate moment, to transfer pregnant women prisoners to outside hospitals. Nevertheless, from time to time, the CPT encounters examples of pregnant women being shackled or otherwise restrained to beds or other items of furniture during gynaecological examinations and/or delivery. Such an approach is completely unacceptable, and could certainly be qualified as inhuman and degrading treatment. Other means of meeting security needs can and should be found. 28. Many women in prison are primary carers for children or others, whose welfare may be adversely affected by their imprisonment.4 4 Cf. also Recommendation 1469 (2000) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on the subject of mothers and babies in prison.